Spring Cleaning

Welcome to Mt. Laundry. It exists in my home and while it may transition in size from one week to the next, it is always there. Laundry, with a family of six means there is always a load that needs to be done. Always. And, with that, it means that there are always clothes that need to be mended, gone through, no longer fit or are stained. Then the fights with the kids come...and husbands...to get rid of those things. I have managed to cut it down to about twice a year. And guess what?

It is that time of year again. That time when window are opened, and curtains blow in the breeze..and it tickles your senses into thinking about cleaning out cobwebs. You look into dark and dreary corners of closets, cabinets and shelves and want to minimize and reduce. I call it "purging." We go through one or two purges a year. It is that time to sit and evaluate what exactly we need...and what we don't. The "need" pile, of course, is always larger than the "don't need" pile.

But I am better than I use to be. I don't save things anymore thinking they may be of use....someday...never knowing what for or when someday may come. Now I know that it is easier to just purge now than letting such objects take up residency in my home...without actually having a place to "be." Now I know it is easier to just go out and buy something that I may have need of rather than save it for that rainy day.

Does it speak of the consumer society we live in now? Does it speak to the toss away mentality that so many have? Yes, it does. And I could be that packrat, who has rooms full of "useful" stuff, but cannot live or breathe in those rooms. Which is the worse offense? So I have learned to pack up large garbage bags and take them to my local Goodwill...it is theirs to use, repair and resell...it will mean so much to someone else, somewhere down the line. I might even be that person who may have to go back and get something that I gave away. But the point is, in the mean time I have not lived with it underfoot, being tossed about and knocked here and there with the risk of being broken or ruined.

So, I pull those things out of my closet...reevaluate. Do I need this purse? Do I like these pants? Will I ever really wear this top again? And take my bag of stuff off to the store.

The laundry is done, and walls are washed. Dishes are cleaned and put away..the stove given that good scubbing. And floors all throughout the house are vacuumed and mopped. Then you sit home and realize that your home is how you want it to be, clean, polished, comfortable, welcoming. And you breathe that sigh of relief...a job well done. A great sense of accomplishment.


Then the kids come home.

*with thanks to Tia Graham who took this photo and shared it with me.

Cocoa

It's a twofer day, since I have been lax in writing in here the last couple of days, I decided to make up for some lost time.



During my lifetime I have owned several pets. A few dogs, a few cats, a couple of fish and one bird. No rodents, no reptiles...although my son did own 4 small frogs for a few days till they all died of ick....but that doesn't count.

What I have discovered, by and large is that I like dogs. I like cats too, but not to the extent I like dogs. I especially like smaller dogs. Big dogs are nice, playful and can be great...friends of ours have three. But they also require a lot of your time, patience not to mention strength and money. A smaller dog travels well, eats small amounts and cannot reach your counter top. Unlike our friends whose dog, Goose, can snag a sandwich quicker than you can say "Subway, Eat Fresh" and will be completely unremorseful about it. His attitude is, "Hey, you left it unattended, I am just doin' what comes naturally to a dog."

So, it turns out that I like smaller dogs. Not frou-frou lap dogs that shiver and bark to piercing decibles that can cause your ears to pop. But nice, smaller dogs that are fun to play with, but cannot chew off a neighbor's limb.

That being said, I think I may have now what is definitively the best dog in the world. I have a mini-pin/chihuahua mix. Yeah...he is a mutt, for all intents and purposes. But he came from two parents that were both purebred. So not that much mutt. He is a lovely chocolate brown with golden fawn color tippings and beautiful golden eyes. He has a small head, a trim body and long graceful legs. He literally looks like a shrunken grayhound...or a small fawn without spots. We call him Cocoa.

I love this little dog. For lots of reason. But the very most, is that he is the first dog that I have put the effort into training...and he gets it. I train him in something and it isn't like two minutes later he forgets it.

My favorite thing that Cocoa does? He knows that he is not allowed in the kitchen while I am cooking. So he inches his butt just over the line to where the carpeting is and sits waiting for any little tidbit to fall...but that does not cause him to bolt into the kitchen...no he is far too well trained to do that. No, he waits until I tell him it is ok for him to come in and to eat whatever delictible morsel is tantilizing him. Now that is a good dog. He does tricks and is obedience trained. (although we do have a bit of a problem with coming back once released from me to run free...it is hard to be a dog and given our heart's desire)

In the long run, I don't think I have had bad dogs. I think I have been a bad owner. It has taken all this time for me to figure out how to talk to a dog, what works and what doesn't. So I think I have been the one to change..not that I have a better dog, but rather I have become a better person....for my dog.


My next step with Cocoa? I want to begin Agility Training. It is a goal. Since I have become better at understanding 'dog' I want to give him more activities to do with me so that he will get more exercise. I think that will make him an even better dog...and make me an even better person.


As the saying goes, I hope to aspire to be the person my dog thinks I am.

Shutterbugs and Family Mugs

The advent of the digital camera was truly one of the greatest things that has come down the pike since....well, sliced bread. Since it is now one of the easiest pieces of technology to own considering that almost every cell phone comes with one it is easy to say it has changed our lives.

Gone are the days of having to run out and buy film, shoot it...make sure you have the right kind, enough and the right kind of light. Then once you are done shooting the film you have to actually take it somewhere and have it developed...and then remember to pick it up. All those bits and pieces...it is any wonder that digital has made our lives so much simpler?

But not only that, we now have the ability to take those pictures and get rid of the duds. Those horrid pictures that we would think to ourselves, "Well, no one is ever going to see that one!" and off to the trash can it would go. Or we would chuckle and think that we had the perfect chance to bribe someone with that photo that was going to embarrass them to no end. Now we have the ability to shoot the same shot over and over till we get just what we want. They are perfect. They are frameable. They are better than school photos or our wedding photos in many cases. Hail the advent of the digital.


And yet...I will stroll back through the photo albums of my family photos looking though each picture, laughing at the memories. I recall this, think on that, remembering not just what happened in the pictures but a myriad of other things attached to it. You see when we see those old photos we don't just see the people standing there and think, "Oh yes, this was Christmas, 1979." We look at the clothes. We look at the furniture....really; did anyone ever think that a velveteen all over brown floral print couch was a good interior design idea? We remember nicnacks, clothing, and haircuts. So much. Too much. We sometimes laugh until we have tears. This is the good stuff. Not the perfectly framed up picture.

People do not look and think, "well isn't that picture well thought out and centered, we did a really nice job Christmas of 91." No they think to themselves, "Good god, what was I thinking wearing MCHammer pants in gold metallic to Christmas dinner?" We want memories, not catalog photos.

I can't remember the last time I printed out a photo, other than to frame. I haven't held a stack of pictures in my hands that weren’t a decade old in perhaps five years. But I recall, going to the store to pick them up and being so excited that I had to open them standing right there in the store to see each and every one of them. They were treasures to me; the good, the bad and the ugly. I kept them all. Now only the excellent are kept. Sure my ability to grab the perfect photo has grown. But the shameful thing is, if anyone wants to see pictures of my kids I have to pull out my phone, not my wallet.

I wonder how another generations will look back on this one and wonder if we had become minimalistic, almost fundamental in our approach, sure we cut away the clutter.....but did we cut away the personality while we were at it?

Me? I will take my family photos with a dash of humiliation, a smidge of goofiness and just a touch of that awkwardness that somehow tells people when they look at us that "yeah...they aren't inbred...but they look like they are related."

I am off to buy some Polaroid film.


P.S. My apologies to the above family, which is not mine. You suffice because you happen to have the same couch as my grandmother...as did probably half the US at some point between 74-86. If I happen to get around to scanning a picture I will exchange it.

Pain

There is one thing in this life that can undo me. Bring me to my knees, and cause me to become who I am not. Pain. I get migraines. That is my weakness. I am sure we all have something that is our undoing. This is mine.

Sure there are other things that cause me pain...and I endure them, but to be truthful, I don't endure them well. I have seen, and known people who have had cancer, and other diseases that they have suffered through. Some have come out the other end to live another day, others passed on. They call it a beautiful pain. There is nothing beautiful about it. During that interim, I watched as they endured pain with a sort of elegance, though, that I will never have...at least I don't feel like I will.

Of course, you get looks of sympathy, understanding pats and soothing words from those around you. Surely, they have never endured what you are enduring, the moment you face pain. Surely, you, and you alone are enduring and will endure the most wretched and worst of all pains comparatively.

Be it a paper cut, surgery, or some mind numbingly painful disease, we feel as though we feel things deeper, more intensely. But we don't voice those inner demons. By giving them voice we are giving voice to that inner child that only believes that the world centers around them.

Our wiser grown up knows that, yes, others do feel pain more, some much more. But it is at that threshold that we have a face off between the two; grownup and child. It is in the twilight of our pain, the intensity that it is decided who will win out.

The times when our child wins out our pain becomes that much harder to manage. We struggle and fight and rail against it, trying to take it off, our pain. Like uncomfortable clothes, that are too tight, we struggle against the pain, only causing it to constrict more, intensify more.

So we have learned to not let our child win out too often. Our grownup side calms the inner child and we try to relax our way through the pain. What an odd statement. Relax our way through the pain. In a sense we embrace it, breathe through it, tell our muscles not to fight it. And then we just feel. It is all we have left at that point...to feel.

That depth of feeling, though is what tells us that we are still alive. And yes, whether we want to or not, at that moment, we are going to live. At least for a few minutes more. Breathe in, breathe out. Feel.

Thunder & Lightning

As storms rolled through our area last night, I found myself in awe of their power, once again. It is not just that they can down trees and power lines. That, of course, is part of it. But rather how it can take my brave little dog, who is afraid of nothing, who will chase down and bark at the least little sound, and turn him into a quivering pile of fur and bones.

How every person you meet will look at the storm as a nuisance, but also with a fear of saying that just out loud. They know. We all do. A storm is alive. If nothing else, you can feel a storm's life. It breathes. It moves. And like a two year old that has not gotten its way, it stomps through field after field, street after street demanding and crying for us to do its bidding. We no sooner know what to feed a storm than we do a picky two year old. It leaves before we can calm it and we are left with the aftermath.

Storms do one of two things to us...they either unnerve us, or comfort us. There have been times where the sounds of the rain falling on the roof, dripping from the eaves and the distant thunder have swayed me to sleep. And there have been times where I have sat, tense with a cup of tea and, of course, a scared dog and listened to nature howl around me. Just hoping that, for at least right now, I was going to stay safe and dry...but not believing it.

Storms have robbed me, at times, of just my creature comforts. I am always just a little undone by a storm that leaves me without electricity. It is that sense of..."how long until it comes back on?" that leaves me fretful and pacing back and forth. It is our nature, in the way of things today, to not know how to live without the things that a storm can take away in just a second.

Our alarm clocks, our microwaves, our refrigerators, and, of course, our computers. We feel as though part of arms are tied behind our back without them. And we amble around our houses trying to figure out how to exist without the use of these things.

Which always leads me, no matter what, to pause and think about how complicated our lives have become. If I find it hard to exist and even do things without these "conveniences" what would I do if I were really pushed to rough it? Even when we would go hiking or camping when I was growing up there were conveniences attached to what we did....as many as we could haul with us...and still respectably call ourselves campers.

Now my idea of roughing it is a Motel 6 without a phone. And the saddest part is, I am no pampered princess. I recall a night in Tennessee when a storm hit and took the power just as I was getting ready to make dinner. The kids are standing around looking at me as if I could magically snap my fingers and make the television and Internet come back on. They have a hard time conceptualizing something called a "book." And as I stood there looking in the fridge trying to figure out how to make dinner, I looked over at the stove and thought, "hmmm....I can't cook anything on the stove. OH! I know....I just pop it in the microwave."

Paralyzed indeed.

Sleep, Breakfast and Sunshine

I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is 'Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's the great puzzle! ~Alice, Alice in Wonderland.


I work the night shift. Well for at least a few more weeks, anyway. I am being moved over to the day shift...and not just any day shift..a M-F day shift position. Back to the norm. Get up, go to work, come home, make dinner, watch a little tv, go to bed...repeat. Who would have thought this would thrill me?

I am a creature of nature. I have habits that are not just set in stone...they are fossilized. I drink something before I sleep every single night...I chew on ice (I know...bad for my teeth. So I will die well hydrated with bad teeth...life is a trade off.) and I read my book. I fall asleep doing this every night.

Although I don't sleep through the night now. I sleep through the day. And my body, creature of habit that it is, can almost feel the sunshine through my skin...the slightest sounds wake me...and I can never fall back asleep. I eyelids perceive that there is light and my brain, hardwired now after years of training, says, "Get UP! It is time to work, to get things done...you're burning sunshine!" And I say, "No, I have only had two hours of sleep. I need to sleep." And my body, unwillingly finally falls into a restless sleep all the while struggling, straining, if you will to have me rise to normalcy.

My vampiric habits have thrown me into a world where I am not sure which way is up. Like Alice's long fall through the rabbit hole, I keep wondering if there is an end, if there is such a thing as time, if ever was.



"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here." ~Alice, Alice in Wonderland

The change, they say, would do me good. Give me perspective and I would, eventually, adjust. But adjust to what? To being awake and mobile around the house, while everyone else sleeps? To have my normal days be out of sync with everyone else? To not knowing which meal to eat...or even when?

No...you don't adjust to night shift. You cope. And I have found a level at which I cope...found others who have the same schedule as I do so that I have someone to talk to and do not find myself so alone. They make it worthwhile, these other creatures of the night. It is for them, and only them that I will miss the night shift.

Otherwise, I bid it farewell like a gnawing blister on my foot. I will embrace spring again. I will see my children and be part of their lives, rather than rise when they come home only to take a couple of hours to wake up. (does one ever get over that groggy feeling on nights?) And I will be part of the human race again. Pushing my cart through Wal-Mart when there are actually other people there. Not always asking people what day it is. Eating meals in order of breakfast, then lunch, then dinner. Bliss!

The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said was, "Why is a raven like a writing-desk?"
"Come, we shall have some fun now!" thought Alice. "I'm glad they've begun asking riddles. — I believe I can guess that," she added aloud.
"Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?" said the March Hare.
"Exactly so," said Alice.
"Then you should say what you mean," the March Hare went on.
"I do," Alice hastily replied; "at least--at least I mean what I say--that's the same thing, you know."
"Not the same thing a bit!" said the Hatter. "You might just as well say that 'I see what I eat' is the same thing as 'I eat what I see'!"
"You might just as well say," added the March Hare, "that 'I like what I get' is the same thing as 'I get what I like'!"
"You might just as well say," added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep, "that 'I breathe when I sleep' is the same thing as 'I sleep when I breathe'!"
~Alice, The Mad Hatter, The March Hare and The Doormouse, Alice in Wonderland.




But I have learned many things during this trip "into that long goodnight." I do not take for granted a good night's sleep. I appreciate all the more what those who do the night shift go through, and I hope for them that it is either something that they want, or that it becomes something that they can handle. And for those who flip between days and nights...like nurses, you have all my praise and admiration. It was hard enough for me to make the adjustment to this on a day in and day out basis. I cannot imagine what you go through flipping around week after week and month after month. Torture.

And so, I will go through the next 6 weeks or so until I switch back over to days. I will savor the insanity of this mixed up, topsy-turvey world that I am in right now. Because now I know, I want to appreciate the small things that make life rich, like sleep, breakfast and sunshine.


If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see? ~Alice, Alice in Wonderland.

Faith

Faith -noun.
confidence or trust in a person or thing
belief that is not based on proof
belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion
belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc.
a system of religious belief
the obligation of loyalty or fidelity to a person, promise, engagement, etc.
the observance of this obligation

For such a small word, it does carry a lot of impact. What do we really know of it...its depth? I can promise you my loyalty but are there implied caveats? I'll be loyal...as long as...?

How does that impact one's ability to have faith in another person? If I know that there is a limit to your loyalty...is there a limit to my faith in you?

Or is there a point, where someone can move beyond another person's capabilities and place faith in even what they cannot promise? Beyond what is in their purview..beyond what they think themselves capable of?

It is in that place...where my faith in another moves beyond even what they believe of themselves that I push beyond faith...to hope. To believe they are capable of far more than they can believe of themselves. To believe, and hope the very best of them, and for them.

I find it is like an exercise of the soul. To push ourselves into that place where we have no proof. We have no promises. We have no guarantees. Yet we allow ourselves to tumble off the edge of that cliff headfirst believing that that other person will live up to what we believe of them.

Of course, there have been times when those I have had faith in have failed me...or rather, themselves...and I have done it to them. It happens. Some walk away with the thought that they have learned to not be so trusting. I wonder why? Haven't we just learned that they need more of our faith? Not to be deluded by what is not true...we need that raw reality...and not that we don't see things for what they are, of course, we should always be aware, and not taken advantage of. But faith is not about that. I can truly believe that someone is capable of better, and still protect myself. Yes, once burned, twice shy, but that person still cannot take away from me my belief.

It may come across as a Polly Anna takes on the world attitude, but in truth, it sees without judging, it hears with a tolerant ear. Faith listens to the heart.

Faith listens with the heart.

Flowers

At the beginning of each new year, after the Christmas decorations are taken down and I stare down at the extra pounds the eggnog and ham have added, I begin to anticipate the dawning of another season. Spring.

It cannot come soon enough, stay long enough or be bright enough to cause sensory overload...but I wish it did. I wait with baited breath from mid-January until late May just looking for those first blooms, those warming rays of sunshine and those toe-tickling tender blades of grass beneath my feet.

I always look with wonder at each flower, each petal and think upon how it unfolds, tilts its small body towards the sunshine and for a few days does nothing but stare heavenwards and sun worship.

How wonderful something so simple in its task can be so beautiful at it at the same time. Sure we have all met the people in our lives who work to make themselves beautiful and then, are vapid and do nothing with that which they have. Yet a flower, or a small child can, in simplistic beauty, be set upon by one task and in that task take on the glory of the world.

I look at a flower, simple in its design; unfold, attract so that it can be pollinated, go to seed, and die, that does its job with such beauty, grace and ease. I will to apply that ease of grace to my own life. Simple. Graceful. Tilting your head toward the sun and just be.

Motherhood

"Motherhood brings as much joy as ever, but it still brings boredom, exhaustion, and sorrow too. Nothing else ever will make you as happy or as sad, as proud or as tired, for nothing is quite as hard as helping a person develop his own individuality especially while you struggle to keep your own." -- Marguerite Kelly and Elia Parsons



I am a mother. With all that entails. All of the sticky fingers. All of the untied shoes. All of the slamming doors. All of the dates. All of the broken curfews. They are all mine.

And each child that presents me with these things, these dilemmas, every day presents me with another way to think about how I respond to them and mold their lives with some input...but eventually, they become who they are going to be. I find I delight in the discovery.


It causes me to think back on what it must have been like for my own mother. The potential I had! The possibilities! What a landscape that lay before me..so much different than the days when women were expected to find a man and get married, I grew up in a time where college was an open door to me. I could choose from so much.

Yet, the decision I made was to marry and to have children. To be the housewife. And I do not regret it. I loved every minute of being a homemaker, raising children and being a wife. But I look back, with a bit more wisdom now and think, "Oh, now I see all the possibilities I had...and what I could have done and the things I could have had. And I still could have been a homemaker...." I understand now, perhaps some of the regrets and disappointments my own mother might have felt in me. I could have had so much more.

But living in the past has never given anyone more today. And so, a couple of years ago I took advantage of those possibilities and graduated with my degree. I am working at a very satisfying job now with great opportunity for advancement. I like where I am at in life. I like who I am in my life now.

And this makes me a good mother. In so many ways. It draws on the values and good that my mother was able to instill in me...and there was so much. There are still so many days I think, "I wish I was more like my mom."

And it trickles down to my kids. They see me in a different light. I am more confident. I am self assured. And in this, they get a better me. They take away a better them. We are open with each other and respect each other more.

In life my goal is not to create little people who are just like me...God forbid. My goal is to create individuals, who can think, create and be themselves, without fear of what that means. I am proud of who they are so far. I only see good things for them right now...my worries are small. Sure they have bumps in their roads...some of them are going to be hard, but I have confidence that they will be able to handle them all with the personalities they have. They are strong, stronger than I was.

And isn't what this is all about...motherhood? Building a better mousetrap?

Happy Mother's Day Mom....I miss you and think of you every single day. From one mouse to another.

Girl In A Miniskirt Reading The Bible Outside My Window

I was recently looking for a poem to use in my cubicle..something to do with computers...and I found one...but in finding it...I found a wonderful poet I had never heard of...I have read a ton of his work since then...this is one of my favorites...and has been committed to memory.


Girl In A Miniskirt Reading The Bible Outside My Window

Sunday, I am eating a
grapefruit, church is over at the Russian
Orthadox to the
west.

she is dark
of Eastern descent,
large brown eyes look up from the Bible
then down. a small red and black
Bible, and as she reads
her legs keep moving, moving,
she is doing a slow rythmic dance
reading the Bible. . .

long gold earrings;
2 gold bracelets on each arm,
and it's a mini-suit, I suppose,
the cloth hugs her body,
the lightest of tans is that cloth,
she twists this way and that,
long yellow legs warm in the sun. . .

there is no escaping her being
there is no desire to. . .

my radio is playing symphonic music
that she cannot hear
but her movements coincide exactly
to the rythms of the
symphony. . .

she is dark, she is dark
she is reading about God.
I am God.

Charles Bukowski

Art

I was in a discussion the other day where we were talking about what makes a truly great artist. Of course, the norms of "creativity", "drive" and "inspiration" were all bandied about. And all of those things are, indeed things that a truly great artist does need to posses. Without them, they will fall into the abyss of being just someone who sells their wares on the streets to tourists who are looking for just the right painting to hang above the fire place..the one that matches the carpet and the draperies.

However, actual greatness in the art, be it music, poetry or illustrated depends upon one thing; the audience. I have very defined views about art and as such do not feel that it is objective to the artist. Being an artist myself, I find, that it matters not what feelings I want to impart to my audience as they view a work, it is what they take away that ultimately defines the piece.


In other words, art is not at the mercy of the one who creates it, rather once released, like the fledgling bird pushed from its nest, it must either fly or flounder. The public will decide its fate. We, as its creator can no longer support it, trying to give it life and help it to be understood. Either they get it...or they don't.

One of my favorite stories to illustrate this is Degas and De Kooning. Edvard Degas was known fairly well, in his time to be somewhat of a woman hater. He did not suffer fools lightly. And uneducated women or women who thought that they could use their sexuality to get ahead were among he worst. And so, in his angst he painted them, in the lowliest of positions, crouching, squatting and sitting....doing the lowliest of things, bathing, cutting their toenails or brushing their hair. It was crass and somewhat vulgar in his time period. And everyone stood and pondered it and spoke of how he was able to bring beauty to such lowly stations. He has brought us down to our humblest of position and shown us the beauty in such simple moves.


Not what Degas had intended.

Then there is Willem De Kooning. The story goes that he was married at the time, but also was known to wantonly stray. His many affairs had led him into the bed of one woman who gave him a dose of his own medicine. He found her in bed with another woman. His anger was taken out in a series of paintings entitled Woman II through V. The woman are shown as fat, having sagging breasts, sharp teeth and to be staring off into the distance as if they have nothing to keep them occupied, just waiting for their next victim to come along. As such they portray women in a horrible light. Standing in a gallery and listening to the comments, or asking the questions of those pondering the painting you find great insight. "He must have been very angry." "They are not pretty pictures, are they?" "I wouldn't want to find a woman that looks like that." And thus you can only conclude that De Kooning was capable of conveying his full meaning at that moment...hatred of women. One need only ponder his painting to understand that is possessed anger, angst, a vile disposition that only sees women as bloodthirsty and wanton.

In comparing and contrasting De Kooning and Degas you may find that you much prefer to look at a Degas. It is a nicer picture. It is pretty. However, you would have to find that Degas did not succeed where De Kooning had. De Kooning was able to show forth his emotions and communicate them quite clearly, whereas Degas missed the mark. We are all the richer for it, but still he was a misunderstood artist.

Recently, in Managua, Nicaragua, a young man by the Guillermo Vargas showed an exhibit called "Exposición N° 1". This exhibit focused on poverty and the situation in Costa Rica. In the exhibit there was a dog chained to a wall. As the story goes, the dog was already in a state of starvation and weakened and it is undetermined if the dog died while on display or if he escaped and later died. It is only known that the dog did die of starvation. The people's perception of the exhibit was not one that shed light on poverty and cast a sympathetic eye toward the Costa Rican people, but rather one that case an eye of cruelty toward the artist and the gallery for choosing to put on such an exhibit. In this case, the artist failed in his attempt to connect with his audience a message that had great importance to him. In fact, he did quite the opposite and incited them against his work.

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillermo_Vargas)

As a result the most imperative quality that a good artist can bring to their work is an intuitive knowledge of people and how to make them feel something. An artist that can reach deep into another individual and cause them to "feel" any emotion has a gift the one who can do it with something beautiful at the same time....possesses greatness.

Friendship

Friends, to me, are my lifeblood. Day in and day out we move through the ocean of humanity with an expectation of leaving behind enough of a mark that, when we are gone, someone will miss us. Friends, those who really know and get us, are the ones who feel that indelible mark of our uniqueness upon them. Who we are is reflected back to us in how our friends perceive us, and how they change as a result of knowing us.

We could say the same of family, however some family carries with it this connection that is forced and has in some cases carried on long past its efficacious period. Friends are different, knowing in most cases that we do not have to continue a relationship beyond what is healthy, we tend towards that which benefits us most.

Thus true, longstanding friendship is what gives us roots, what causes us to believe the very best about ourselves, and is what sees when we are truly not right with the universe. It is, in listening to these sage opinions, truly hearing them, that we can seek to become the person we dream of.

And it is in being the person who can speak in honesty, to a friend, without fear of repercussion or retribution that is the truest of friends. We all believe ourselves to be this type of friend. But in truth, until we have had to say something to a dear friend that is hard, we do not know the test of friendship. Until we have had to stand, naked and humble before them, admitting fault, guilt or wrongdoing we no more know how to be a friend than how to be a stranger.

Sure the chai on Saturdays is wonderful. And the book store on a lazy Sunday. But friendship is not forged in those moments, it is celebrated. Those are the zeniths. It is in the nadir that the dross is burned off, and we find that which we knew was there, but had not yet been accessed.

And so we temper our friendships in the same manner we would a good piece of wood. As time wears away edges, it reveals a grain that is simple. We appreciate it. But, it is in the care and keeping that we find its beauty. Polished wood glows and bears the marks of life upon it. It shows the imprint of our care and it thirsts for our touch. In that touch, the connection between us and someone who has been imprinted with our lives, we find our right path.

This is me.

Grasping Excellence

As a whole, perfection is an unattainable state. It lies just outside of our purview and because of the nature of what it is, perfection will always be just short of our grasp. Excellence, on the other hand, allows for imperfections, allows for personal appeal and tastes and therefore is a much more sane pursuit.

I tend to pursue excellence in my life. In things I bring into my life and the standards I hold. Does that I mean I obtain excellence? No...in a lot of instances I fall short of my own mark. But because I do look at life and try to apply a standard I find that I am always reaching, but I do obtain, and am satisfied with certain marks that I have reached. Could I have done better, can it be improved? Yes, but that does not take away from the excellence that exists on its own. Something can be excellent, and still be improved upon.

As such, we can find a satisfaction with excellence that we cannot find with perfection. If you knew you could improve something in your life, with just a small, slight minor adjustment, would you? Or does comfort and complacency tend to cause you to choose not to change until the pain of not changing becomes greater than the pain of changing? Such self examination is often times harsh and shines a light into corners of our lives that we would like to leave under the dust covered boxes and faded photographs. It calls attention to things we would rather ignore. Our bad eating habit, our closets, the birthday's we seem to always forget....and like children who are misbehaving begs us to address the situation.

Pursuit of excellence is not a total life overhaul. It is small changes which improve the quality of life. Just noticing, "Hey, if I make this small change I will see this improvement." and then doing it. And continuing it over time until it becomes a part of who you are. By asking yourself in every activity, "Is there a better way to do this?" we can fine tune things that we might not ever take notice of. Taking out the garbage, driving to work, cleaning out the spare room....

We can probably think of more ways to improve upon something than we can actually implement. But chances are if you implement one change and see a positive affect you will choose to make another.

And by doing so, you are in pursuit.